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Progressive Canadian Party takes up Harper challenge for better Senate Reform

For Immediate Release July 30, 2015:

Newmarket, Ontario - The Hon. Sinclair Stevens, Leader of the Progressive Canadian (PC) party, took up Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s challenge to provinces and others to come up with better, constitutionally acceptable Senate reform proposals.

Mr. Harper has declared a moratorium on prime ministers’ nominations for Senate appointments by the Governor General of Canada until it is reformed. Prime ministers have been nominating candidates to the GG for some time. The practice has become a convention within the constitution. Some believe that the PM makes Senate appointments based on their qualifications. However, recent appointments appear to have been made for party and sectarian provincial interest.

“Progressive Conservatives understood that the Senate is a check on the prime minister and cabinet government and on excesses of electoral partisanship and provincial sectarianism, as intended at Confederation. We enshrined this understanding as Guiding Principles for Senate Reform at our National Policy Convention in 2000 and reaffirmed them at the PC Democratic Reform Convention in 2002.

Today’s PCs take this a step further.” Stevens said. “We propose that future nomination of senate candidates to the GG shall come from the non-partisan Queen’s Privy Council, instead of from the Prime Minister alone.”

The PC Party proposal fulfils the need for change able to meet the constitutional requirements for regional representation in an Upper Chamber. It is selected for knowledge and ability to serve as a revising chamber of government legislation, or “sober second thought”.

“As a member of the Queen’s Privy Council I am aware of the privilege and duty we have historically to advise the monarch through Her representative the Governor General of Canada. These are powers rarely used by the Queen’s Privy Council meeting in full assembly but exist within the constitution.”

Mr. Stevens noted that our problems today seem to centre on the partisanship of a prime minister who for the first time in Canadian history makes nominations only of people who “pledge” to pass his government’s legislation. Many recent appointments are clear patronage. This abandons the Senate’s duty to review and revise government legislation within the constitution. Mr. Harper has said he will only make appointments if the Senate is reformed to elect senators accountable to individual provinces. That would build firewalls around each province against Canada and the House of Commons instead of representing all Canadians equally by protecting minority interests.

“Progressive Canadians propose to reform Senate nominations within the constitution by allowing a quorum of the full Queen’s Privy Council to advise the GG on the basis of the personal excellence and knowledge of governance of the candidates.” Mr. Stevens concluded.

NOTES: The Queen’s Privy Council consists of current and former prime ministers, cabinet ministers, Supreme Court Chief Justices, former speakers of the House of Commons and Senate, former governors general, invited current and former premiers and distinguished individuals, and members of the royal family.

Newmarket, Ont. - A legal analysis by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has moved the Harper Government's anti-terrorism Bill C-51 onto the world stage.

The view of Canadians that Bill C-51 is extreme, threatens privacy rights, individual freedoms and freedom of expression under the Charter is supported internationally. The media outlet Thinkpol reports that the OSCE has concluded:

"The Harper government’s controversial anti-terrorism bill violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Canada has ratified, according to legal analysis by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the world’s largest security-oriented intergovernmental organization."

Two months ago the PC Party called upon the Speaker of the Senate and the Governor General of Canada to act to protect Canadians against abuse of power by the Harper government threatening Canadian values and freedoms under the pretence of national security. Progressive Canadians believe the Governor General and Senate must refuse to pass Bill C-51 into law to protect Canadian values and Canada's international reputation.

An Open Letter Sent to Both the Governor General and the Speaker of the Senate

For Immediate Release March 20, 2015

Newmarket, Ont. - The Hon. Sinclair Stevens, Progressive Canadian Party leader stated in letters sent to Governor General David Johnston and Speaker of the Senate Claude Nolin reasons why they ought to reject agreeing to the passage of Bill C-51, Anti-terrorism Act, 2015.

(39) No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.

(40) To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay, right or justice.

the authors of Bill C-51 are proposing pre-emptive arrest and seeking to create or modify “ … the law of the land.” to facilitate pre-emptive arrest. Moreover, the current majority government is forcing the Bill through the House by limiting the time for Parliament and its committees to fully debate the proposed law and ignoring requests to provide oversight.

Should the Bill be passed by the Harper Government majority in the House of Commons both Speaker and Governor General have been beseeched to reject it outright. The Senate through performing its proper role as ‘Chamber of sober second thought’, the Governor General for the preservation of the freedoms granted to us 800 years ago by a predecessor of She whom he represents.

It is further suggested that when passing Bill-C51 back to the House a complete copy of the Magna Carta be included without further comment on the reason(s) for its rejection.

Vancouver, B.C. - Michael Huenefeld, Progressive Canadian (PC Party) Vancouver Centre candidate in the 2015 election and 2011 candidate-of-record today raised the alarm against the claw-back of environmental protection and risk to public safety evidenced by the English Bay oil spill.

Mr. Huenefeld observed: "Claw-backs of resources ranging from shutting down the Kitts Beach Coast Guard station and reduced transport regulation implicated in the Lac Megantic disaster to silencing or firing Canadian government environmental scientists are already concerns. The tanker oil spill in English Bay here in Vancouver this week is alarming. It's a wake-up call.

Why do we not seem to have been better prepared? Increased tanker traffic in Vancouver, already one of the busiest ports in the world, is going to continue. Yet the Harper government is back-tracking on the positive record on the environment of the Mulroney Progressive Conservative government which worked with environmentalists like Elizabeth May.

Unlike the Harper Conservative party created in 2003, Progressive Canadians are calling for the same activist role on the environment we, as Progressive Conservatives, played by properly funding environmental science and protections at home and internationally, for example in securing US participation in the Rio Conference and Montreal Protocol on ozone."

Michael Huenefeld's remarks were echoed by South Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale PC Party candidate-of-record Brian Marlatt who added, "We face the same kinds of threat all along the BC coast whether here in South Surrey-White Rock where new shoreline US coal train traffic poses an alarming threat to the coastline itself, to wildlife, and to our community or in Kitimat's deep fiord where a dilbit spill from Northern Gateway would be even more devastating than bunker or light crude that floats - dilbit would coat the seafloor for generations."

The Progressive Canadian Party Leader is The Hon. Sinclair Stevens.

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For more information contact:

Michael HuenefeldVancouver Centre
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Brian D. MarlattSouth Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale
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604-541-9783